Construction Start on Hongyanhe-6 in China

Tuesday 28 July 2015

Construction Start on Hongyanhe-6 in China

Construction began with the pouring of basemat concrete on 24 July 2015 for the Hongyanhe-6 ACPR-1000 reactor, located near the city of Dalian, Liaoning province, north-east China. Approval for start of construction of new reactor projects was granted by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) on 10 March 2015. The approval was the first to be made since the State Council, following the Fukushima Daiichi accident in March 2011, decided to halt approvals and licensing for new reactors until a safety plan was in place and there was assurance that existing plants were adequately designed, sited, protected and managed. The Hongyanhe nuclear power plant is operated by the Liaoning Hongyanhe Nuclear Power Co. Ltd, which was established in 2006 by the China Guangdong Nuclear Power Co. Ltd., CPI Nuclear Power Co. Ltd. and Dalian Construction Investment Company. Construction of ACPR unit 5 at Hongyanhe began in March 2015. The Hongyanhe CPR-1000 unit 3 was connected to the grid in March 2015, and grid connection for unit 4, also a CPR-1000, is scheduled for later this year. The two ACPR’s are scheduled for completion by 2021. The CPR-1000 has numerous issues related to its safety of design, while the ACPR-1000, which is a modified version of the CPR-1000, also has questions remaining as to the safety revisions incorporated into the reactor design and its overall qualification by Chinese regulators following the Fukushima Daiichi crisis. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was requested to conduct a Generic Reactor Safety Review (GRSR) for the design concept for the ACPR-1000. This was completed in May 2013. The results have not been made public.

What They Say…

“The Report sets forth in painstaking detail the actual experience and achievements of nuclear energy around the world.”

Peter A. Bradford

Former commissionerU.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)(in his foreword to the 2013 report)